Genome Engineering

Because they can become any blood cell type, haematopoietic progenitor cells from bone marrow are used to repopulate the blood in patients that have leukaemias or lymphomas, other blood cancers and inborn defects of the blood or immune system. Researchers at McMaster University, Canada, have developed a technique to turn skin cells into blood progenitor cells.

In research published in Nature, the team inserted the gene coding for the protein Oct-4 into human dermal fibroblasts using a virus vector. This gene (also known as POU5F1) is involved in the self-renewal of stem cells. The breakthrough with this research was that the skin cells turned directly into blood cells, without a halfway step into a pluripotent stem cell.

Previous research has turned mouse skin cells into neurons, but this is reported to be the first time that this type of transformation has happened in human skin cells. The technique works on skin cells from both older and younger people. It has potential to produce cells from transplant, without the issues of finding donors and matching HLA types, as well as being a source of blood for patients requiring transfusion after trauma or surgery.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the Stem Cell Network and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation funded this research. Clinical trials could begin in 2012.